Bringing history to its forefront: reflecting on a nation with Blackness all along

Written by Ronnie Chang @snicketfence

*Content warning: This article includes language that may be offensive; these terms are used solely to preserve historical context, not to endorse or cause harm.

While Black History Month began in the US as ‘Negro History Week’, it has since gone beyond American borders to be celebrated as a global event. As part of its Atlantic crossing to the UK, the celebration has also changed in its time of year: Americans celebrate in February, to coincide with Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’ birthdays. The differences in celebration reflect the different histories each nation has with Blackness. While Black history in the US is defined by the slave trade and the resulting racial tension, the UK is home to many contemporary African and Caribbean refugees.

When the event was first celebrated in the UK during 1987, it was organised by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanian refugee. His choice to move Black History Month to October reflected the month’s significance as a time of gathering for African leaders. The exporting of Black History Month demonstrates the significance of celebrating Black history twofold: How Black history is an integral yet overlooked part of global history and how different relationships to Blackness necessitate celebrating in different ways.

This year’s UK Black History Month is themed around ‘Honouring Our Communities’. With these reading recommendations, I hope that you will remember the joy and resilience that comes from community making. Black people have and will always be part of our human histories, and, through community, anything can be overcome.

River Solomon’s The Deep might be familiar to fans of the band clipping. and their song of the same name. Published in 2019, The Deep traces through a long line of Afrofuturist pop culture from Solomon to clipping. to Drexciya. All of these are premised upon the historical fact that slave ships frequently threw slaves overboard, including pregnant women. Drexciya created a mythological Atlantis built by the mermaid children born from these drowned women. ‘The Deep’ by clipping. drew on this idea and later expanded it into River Solomon’s book, co-authored by the clipping. members. The Deep is a short read, classified as a novella, but a powerful one that draws from this myth to connect the Atlantic slave trade to contemporary imperialism and the climate catastrophe. Throughout it all, the book reminds its readers that we are always stronger together than alone.

A more pertinent look at the African diaspora through a British context is Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Hamid’s book follows a Muslim couple from an unnamed city who must migrate westward when a violent militant group descends upon their hometown. Their migration is conducted through magical doorways rather than physical crossings, but the fearmongering rhetoric they experience as refugees is familiar to readers all the same. Exit West was published in 2017, fresh off the heels of Brexit and the first Trump election. Reading it now, as racial tensions in the UK have only grown while Trump is midway through a second term in office, the question of borders and whether they are truly necessary feels more pertinent than ever.

To take a more positive reading on Black history, This Lovely City by Louise Hare follows Lawrie Matthews, a Jamaican jazz musician who has migrated to London as part of the Windrush Generation. While Hare does not shy from the difficulties faced by migrants entering a country still bearing fresh wounds from World War II, she also revels in little things that bring hope and joy. From the friendly girl next door who catches Lawrie’s heart to the lively Soho night life where he plays his heart out, This Lovely City is as much a story of celebration as it is of tragedy. Ultimately, the community and sense of belonging that Lawrie finds in postwar London far exceed the hatred and bigotry also thrown his way.

Even if their presence is more often overlooked than acknowledged, Black people and their communities always have and always will be part of our communities. Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors: An Untold Story highlights the stories of Black people in Tudor England. While English history is sometimes used to evoke a time of white hegemony, Kaufmann’s work points at the lies begetting this ahistorical nostalgia. By tracing the lives of Black Tudors, it becomes apparent how English society has never truly been purely white. Black stories are simply obscured and overlooked. To honour their presence throughout history and gaze upon the wider tapestry of Black community across space and time makes the truth apparent. Black people have always been here. 

Black history is our history, all of it.

Edited by Vera Chiu @verachiutheartist